Olympic Plaza Lighting Towers. Photograph by Patrick Bingham-Hall.

  • Client ::

    • Olympic Coordination Authority

  • Location ::

    • Homebush Bay, NSW

  • Completed ::

    • 1999

  • Team ::

    • Peter Tonkin, Neil Mackenzie, Paul Rolfe, Amelia Kelly, Brian Zulaikha, Ellen Woolley, Steven Varady. Photos by Patrick Bingham-Hall.

  • Awards ::

    • 1999 Institute of Lighting Engineers Merit Award 1999 ACEA Engineering Excellence Award 2000 RAIA Architects Merit Award, Urban Design 2000 RAIA Architects Environment Award

Project Description::

Tonkin Zulaikha Greer worked with the Hargreaves Associates’ Masterplan for the Olympic Plaza to design the Lighting towers for the Sydney 2000 Olympic games. The 1.6km long Olympic Plaza is the centre of the open space network for the Olympic site and provides access to the main stadium, railway station, indoor stadium and small halls.

The Towers are a series of 19 pylons, each 30 metres tall, which unite many functions on a very small footprint to facilitate crown flows. Large-scale photovoltaic solar collection is couples with sophisticated lighting and structure to create functional public sculpture. At their base, the Towers house all the services required to events in the Plaza, including high and low voltage power, communications, water and drainage.

A five metre square facetted mirror, designed with Barry Webb and Associates, has sophisticated photo metrics, which reflect area lighting indirectly onto the Plaza, providing a unique, glare-free night time ambience. 1150 square metres of photovoltaic collectors are arranged 6 metres above the paving, to provide areas of shade in the Plaza at key locations. These dramatic floating louvred shades are self-coloured and have been designed to provide easy event and maintenance access. At the time of completion the photovoltaic provided one of the largest public solar collectors in the world, and continue to generate a net surplus of power.

The Towers have precast concrete bases, providing volumes to house services and seating. The shafts are angled to true north, away from the large masses of the stadia and towards the Olympic Boulevard, uniting the separate Towers into a cohesive group.